On the Run
by kikis2
Summary: Songfic. Serena has trouble dealing with the fallout from Strippgate. Carter helps. S/Ca slight B/C.


_I'm on the run for my life_

_It seems that everything you said was right_

_Has come undone, lost my sight_

_But have you ever thought you've done your best_

It had been three weeks since she left the hospital.

She doesn't go to events with her mother or to the dinners Blair is constantly trying to set up. The doctors all agree that she's healthy; they can't find an explanation for the headaches she uses as an excuse to stay home watching _The Hills_ and _Jersey Shore_.

She's usually by herself, but sometimes Eric or Rufus pretend to be interested in Speidi's exploits.

It's Friday night when Blair's patience finally snaps. She's sick of Serena's depression, and sick of Chuck's inability to open up. And like the siblings they almost are, they can't help but defend each other's flakiness.

Because to Chuck "Serena just needs time."

Because to Serena "Chuck's dealing...In his own way."

_When you said you were under the gun, that's right_

_I know. I've seen this place before_

_But it's never been so fun_

_Never been so fun_

Blair marches through the Van der Woodsen suite. (She will _never_refer to it as the Humphrey's.) Her eyes narrow on Serena's form, stretched out on the lounge rug, navy eyes staring glassily at the television.

It's nearly sunset and she's already (still) in her polka dot pyjamas.

She gives a small decisive nod. "Alright, that's enough. You're getting dressed and out of this apartment."

"_Blair_," Serena whines. She has a million excuses already prepared, but she doesn't get the chance to use them.

Blair's vintage Chanel skirt swirls around her thighs as she leans over, tugging Serena's arm. Serena stands, but refuses let Blair push her towards her bedroom. "What are you doing, B?"

"_We_ are going to ZIbbibo's," Blair announces in her this-is-_so_-happening tone. It would be the fashion-art fusion show of the year and everybody who was anybody would be going.

She almost hesitates because Serena doesn't just look reluctant.

Serena's eyes are too wide and her breath catches. "I can't, Blair! I can't..."

Blair considers telling her that the night was going to be fun and easy, but she's never been one for comforting lies. "You can and you will. You're going even if I have to do it all myself." She gives the blonde another push towards the bathroom. "Clean. Now. Or I _will_ call Nathaniel and he will pick you up and throw you in the bath."

Serena studies her best friend disbelievingly. She doesn't think Blair would let Nate see her naked and she doesn't think Nate would ever _throw_her, but she heads to her en suite, deciding that with Blair it's better to be safe than sorry.

_I've been on the run, this shadow weighs a ton_

_It's starting to make sense to me_

_I can't really make you love me_

_No, no, you know I can't really make you love me, no, no_

Her hair drips onto the Pucci Blair dressed her in, creating an icy and uncomfortable patch on the small of her back.

She didn't want to put make-up on, but Blair would have just done it for her and she really doesn't want her heated eyelash curler in Blair's hands anytime soon.

She can't believe she's doing this, but Blair said it was the first night Chuck was going to do anything but work or drink alone in his suite since the anniversary of his father's death. And she wants to be there with him, because she knows he'd be there for her.

The limo arrives nearly an hour late.

Because forty-five minutes is how long it took Blair to convince Chuck that he was coming. She doesn't feel even slightly bad about using _because Serena needs you_, even though she'd used a very similar line on her friend.

Sitting between her boyfriend and best friend in the limo—neither of them looking like the expensive hobos they'd begun to resemble—is all the thanks she needs.

_I've been on the run this shadow weighs a ton_

_It's starting to make sense to me_

_I can't really make you love me_

_No, no, you know I can't really make you love me, no, no_

Blair never lets go of her hand once: not when they enter the gallery and conversations mute as she passes; not during the first show when the stolen glances and whispers get more noticeable; and not when the last show finishes and the pointed stares and laughter begin.

Despite every precaution taken and every threat the Van der Bilts made, it seems as if not one person on the Upper East Side failed to hear about her and Tripp.

It's not really that much worse than being at home.

Her mother gives her the same looks of disapproval and she's even noticed the _how could you possibly do this to us_ tone in Lily's voice

Serena's certain that her grandmother will be fine. She's beginning to think cancer never stood a chance. Cece had never twirled more elaborate stories to discredit the Van der Bilts. Or drank more tumblers of gin.

Chuck circles the room, making subtle threats to the loudest gossipers.

He feels like himself for the first time in weeks.

Blair ignores the whispers, but the staring is just plain _rude_ and she teaches the socialites that not one of them can glare half as good as a Waldorf.

_I've been on the run, my shadow weighs a ton_

_I know I found the recipe for me_

_But I can't really make you love me_

_No, no, you know I can't really make you love me, no, no_

Serena fakes smiles for her best friend who has tried so hard, but it's exhausting and she doesn't think she can handle catching the end of one more snide remark.

"These designers are just plain cruel. They're going to have frumpy tweens running all over my city thinking they can pull off mixing plaid and animal print." Blair shakes her head ruefully.

Serena tries to laugh, but her mouth is frozen in a surprised _oh_.

Maureen's gaze meets hers unflinchingly from across the room. Icy blue eyes watch her with spiteful amusement.

Maybe people are whispering just as much about Tripp's wife as his almost mistress, but Serena doesn't have Tripp and according to Upper East Side gossip she nearly drunk drove herself to death.

So Maureen won.

And so Serena lost.

_You know I'm haunted on overseas_

_Haunted on each cost_

_Play them like Ebaneeza_

_I made them see the ghost_

He's back and despite all the things he swore to himself, he's not surprised.

He can't remember all the places he's been, all the bars he lived in, or the beaches he commandeered. None of it felt the way it used to. None of it made him any happier.

It just wasn't what it should be.

And that scares him more than anything.

At first he was angry. He blamed _her_ for the way that he couldn't even summon the energy to seduce his favourite cocktail waitress. Every step became harder, and every mile seemed more and more useless. There was no escaping. Not from her.

New York might be home, but it never called to him the way it does now.

He can't even pretend he's not here for her.

But it's going to be different this time. He's going to go slow. He's not going to drown in her. He's going to keep his head above water and keep breathing.

He's ashamed of how just seeing her makes his body feel warmer.

Her eyes are shut, which is good, because he needs the moment to compose himself. He can't let her see him like this. Not with his stupid heart written all over his stupid face.

_Back from the future donned in Japanese kimonos_

_Even though the streets show love, try to see me grow_

_I often see me floatin', but my shadow it weighs a ton_

_Call it baggage, I use it all to my advantage_

Serena excuses herself, hand slipping from Blair's before the brunette can argue.

She escapes into the brisk Manhattan night. Cars whir by, and people walk past and none of them slow and she can't hear anymore gleeful whispers of _whore_.

But the weight in her chest doesn't lessen.

The truth is she doesn't need them to call her anything. She's quite capable of recalling every mistake she's made and mercilessly replaying it in her mind.

She leans against the outside of the building, knowing she's probably dragging dirt all down the back of her dress. Her eyes flutter closed as she thinks of a good enough excuse to get her away from here. Away from people. And especially away from Maureen.

She can feel someone towering over her. For a moment she doesn't open her eyes, thinking that it's Blair, coming to drag her back to hell.

But Blair doesn't just wait.

She opens her eyes and for a second it feels as if the world shifts just a little, because of all the things she was expecting _he_ definitely wasn't one of them.

_But I can't make you love me_

_This time it's on you_

_And you can't try to deny, these words when they're true_

_I'm on the run_

Carter smiles and it's pure charisma, the smile that he can turn on at a moment's notice and you can never quite remember the reasons why you shouldn't want him.

"Hey beautiful." His eyes drink her in, because it's not just a greeting.

She gives him a brilliant grin that seems to glow even in the dark. But it dims when she remembers that he left her, and she's still not sure why—only knows that it was another one of her infamous mistakes.

"You're here?" She can't quite believe it.

He ignores the question, closing the distance between their bodies. He inches his lips towards hers, but she needs his comfort more than she needs her pride, so she throws herself at him. The kiss is fast and messy and better than anything she can remember.

His arms wrap around her waist automatically. He wanted the kiss to be a teasing _hello_, but he should have realised that it didn't matter what he wanted. Serena was pushing kisses around his mouth and _nobody_had the right (or the will) to turn down Serena Van der Woodsen's kiss.

And the water was rising, but maybe he doesn't need oxygen so much, anyway.

_I've been on the run, this shadow weighs a ton_

_It's starting to make sense to me_

_I can't really make you love me_

_No, no, you know I can't really make you love me, no, no._

Serena thinks she's already made her fair share of mistakes, but she _knows_ she's going to make another anyway.

"Want to get out of here?" she asks impulsively.

He gazes at the entrance of the gallery quizzically, before turning back to her. "Sure." He never knew where they were, anyway.

She disappears from his arms, but he doesn't have time to mourn the loss because she's grabbing him, practically hauling him down the street. It doesn't matter where they're going. He'd follow her anywhere.

Serena whispers something to the girl holding the guest-list, because she's not nearly impulsive enough to leave without telling Blair.

She doesn't exactly know where they're going, but she needs to escape and no one does that better than Carter. Maybe it's expecting too much from a guy that walked out on her and hasn't been taking her calls, but she thinks he'll escape with her.

_I've been on the run, my shadow weighs a ton_

_I know I found the recipe for me_

_But I can't really make you love me_

_No, no you know I can't really make you love me_

They grab a taxi and Serena shouts an address he doesn't recognize.

It isn't until they arrive at a garage establishment that he actually begins to worry. The office is shut and the lights are turned off. It isn't exactly the best part of town either.

It's not as if he's any stranger to trouble, but he's not really in the mood for hotwiring cars or anything. Serena has a tendency to get him arrested and he has a feeling that's not the way a healthy relationship should work.

Not that they have a relationship.

He's not even going to try and make her love him

He shakes her hand a little, not quite trying to remove her grip. "Um, what exactly are we doing?"

She rolls her eyes as if it's a stupid question. "We're getting a car."

And that, right there is what he's afraid of. He's not sure, but he thinks the garage is full of privately owned town cars. "Should I start dialling my lawyer? 'Cause this isn't a dealership, darlin'."

She huffs, pulling at his hand a little harder. "Oh _c'mon_, live a little! We can have it back before anyone notices." She bats her eyelashes for good effect.

He swallows painfully. This is a _really_bad idea, but she's grinning at him and he gets the feeling she hasn't been this happy in a while. "I guess it could be okay—"

Serena lets out a surprised burst of laughter, looking at him incredulously. "You'd do it? _You'd really do it_? You're _insane._"

A slow self-deprecating smile forms as he gets the joke. He agrees: he's completely insane.

"I know the guy who works here. I'm going to pay him to borrow a car." Not exactly kosher, but she's come a long way since a little thing like bribing some guy she met in a bar could faze her. "Though if that's a little dull, I spotted a bimmer half a mile back, you klepto."

_Oh no, ay yo, could get to steppin'_

_Your tongue is like a weapon_

_This is cappin' from heaven and yet so are ye's_

They drive through the night and most of the next day.

Carter's never driven a town car, but he finds he likes it. For the first time in a long while, leaving gives him a thrill that makes his body tingle and his mind race in eagerness for new places, and things to touch, and experiences to collect.

He doesn't think he's had such a relaxing trip ever, even though Serena _loves_ every song that comes on the radio and she has the tendency to sing _loudly_ and _badly_. But this is easy. He's not pretending anything.

He's not even trying to make her love him.

Serena laughs, even when his jokes are really bad. And his occasional bouts of silence don't bother her at all. He wonders if he even needs to be there, or if he's just a prop in Serenaland. (A fun place to visit, nobody gets to stay).

They're in some Podunk town, halfway to North Carolina, when Serena finally calls home.

Her mother is the easiest. Lily may not have been the most hands-on parent, but she knows Serena and she knows the need to get away.

She calls Chuck, because Blair can get really loud when she's worried. Chuck asks a few questions, probably trying to trick her location out of her. But she brushes him off, clearly setting out every reassurance he has to tell Blair.

"Which way?" Carter interrupts. He keeps asking her for directions, though he's pretty sure she has no idea where they're going, and he's absolutely certain she has no idea where they are.

"Um...Left." She goes back to her phone conversation, "and I'm going to be fine, and I'm not going to—"

Chuck interrupts in a tone she's come to dread. "Who. Was. That?"

"I can't talk, we're...driving!" she bursts out.

"Is that _Baizen_? Give him the phone right now."

"Gotta go!" She snaps her phone shut.

Carter's mouth is trembling with the effort not to laugh. "_We're driving_?" he mocks.

She smacks his arm. "It's _Chuck_. He makes me nervous when he gets like _that_."

Carter's phone starts ringing. He looks at the number and switches it off. Serena is giving him a satisfied smirk. "I'm not nervous," he says defensively. "I just don't like the guy."

_Since the age of seventeen_

_I've been taking apart microphones_

_You've been taking apart men you've blown_

_With glowing skeleton bones_

He's been away, but he could have been in Siberia and he still would have heard about the latest scandal. It's not like he's started reading Gossip Girl or anything...

Every person has a different version, but his cousin Stephen's was the least dramatic.

_You know Tripp? The Van der Bilt one? So his wife comes home one night, and there's Lilly Bass's kid in her bedroom, giving the congressman a BJ! And the girl's completely wasted, ends up driving straight off a cliff!_

Carter wasn't sure how much of it he believed.

But something had happened. There's a small scar on the edge of her hairline that wasn't there before. She looks pretty good (_amazing_) for someone who went off a cliff.

There's a flinching in her eyes that wasn't there before either. Like maybe her world isn't as safe as it used to be.

He hates Tripp for that.

Okay, he hates the guy for a lot of reasons.

But he's not completely surprised about the turn of events.

At seventeen he'd considered himself a hardened libertine; Serena cut her teeth on guys like him. But a political scandal? He'd thought she'd be at least twenty-one for her first one of them. And the Van der Bilts? Couldn't she start somewhere a little less _fatal_?

He tells himself that he didn't come back just to make sure she was okay. He didn't come back just on the off chance she needed a shoulder to cry on.

And he's not going to try and make her love him.

Because that would be desperate.

_In the closet, animals strike curious poses_

_They feel the heat between us_

_But you need a woman's glorious style on diamond to fetus_

_Carry my penis, I'm like the man in the moon_

_When we kissed then you soon on the run_

Carter gets two rooms at the hotel. She wants to wave her hand in front of his face and ask where the real Carter Baizen is.

She flushes with embarrassment. Carter had left her. And she did kind of kidnap him. But it hadn't even crossed her mind that he didn't _want_ her.

Outside her room she kisses him. She's testing the water more than anything. This is _Carter_. She doesn't want to play games of maybe-he-does-maybe-he-doesn't; she just wants to know whether he came back to New York or back to her.

She cups his face, loving the feel of his sharp regrowth against her skin. His lips are slightly rough as they move over the skin of her throat. She arches into him when his hands skim down her back.

She pulls him into her room, slamming the door shut behind them. She decides right there and then that she likes kidnapping. And she's _good_ at it.

He leads her to the bed and helps her crawl onto his lap.

She starts unbuttoning his shirt, but his eyes are fixed too intently on hers. It makes her nervous. She leans her forehead against his, focuses on her finger fiddling with his collar. Maybe he'll stop looking at her like that. His hands are wrapped around her back, but they're not moving and usually he'd have her naked by now.

"_What?_" she breathes in exasperation.

He tilts his head back and gives her that look again, like maybe he's trying to see right through her. He reaches up to brush the scar along her hairline. It doesn't hurt, but she cringes from his touch.

"You know?" she guesses.

He wants to smile, but figures that would be inappropriate. For someone getting into such nasty business, Serena can be so goddamned naive sometimes. "Tell me about it?"

He's not sure he wants to know. He doesn't want to hear about how some stuck-up, Van der Bilt bore charmed her out of her pants and out of her sense. But it's following them and he doesn't want her skeletons weighing her down. Not when she's with him now.

She scowls at him, full lips pouting. "I don't want to talk about it."

"You'd be the only one."

Any awkwardness flees at the sound of her giggles. Maybe everyone was talking about it, but no one had talked about it to her. She whispers, so lightly he wouldn't be able to hear it if her lips weren't so temptingly close. "I think I messed up."

"Yeah, no shit." He really wishes he had the right words to make everything better again, but those words don't exist. So maybe he can just shut up and listen.

_I've been on the run, this shadow weighs a ton_

_It's starting to make sense to me_

_I can't really make you love me_

_No, no, I can't really make you love me, no, no_

She tells him the whole sordid story, even the parts that she couldn't tell Blair. A few tears slide down her cheeks when she tells him about Tripp making a deal with Maureen, because saying it out loud reminds her of how stupid she was.

But she doesn't cry when she tells him about the accident. It's still surreal. Because even now she can see Tripp's smile; he was so good. Charming and sweet, without even a hint of Upper east side crazy.

"He's an asshole," Carter pronounces, like he's diagnosing the problem.

Her eyes flitter away, even though she's still straddling his lap, so they can't go far. "Yeah," she agrees, but not like she means it. Because Tripp wasn't an asshole. He was _nice_. To her, to everyone, and she can't help thinking there has to be something else to it.

He cups her face gently, but repeats the word exactly the same. "He's an asshole. And you did nothing wrong."

She raises her eyebrows.

"Okay, you could have been a little smarter," he amends. "And a little sneakier. And why did you have to work for him? That's just stupid. And a Van der Bilt? Maybe next time just go for a Rockefeller or a Walton. That'll sort out those death wishes."

"Ha ha." She curls into his chest, remembering that they haven't slept for a really long time. "Did you miss New York?"

She's nearly asleep when she hears his response. "Not even a little."

_I've been on the run, my shadow weights a ton_

_I know I've found the recipe for me_

_But I can't really make you love me_

_No, no, you know I can't really make you love me, no, no_

It took him two days to figure out their destination. _Left, left, left_. She was driving them in circles and him crazy. He's embarrassed that it took him this long to work it out.

This was Serena of course she wanted the ocean; they were following the coast because she wanted to find a beach. With anyone else he would have been annoyed. But annoying was cute on her.

Eventually they find a stretch of coast that meets her approval. It's empty and the waves are bigger than her.

She walks towards the water, shedding her clothes before he's even out of the car. He wants to ask if it's really appropriate to be walking around a beach in lingerie, but then she might put her top on and that would be a shame.

She shimmies out of her shorts, and he can't help but smile. This is _her_. On a beach, who the hell knows where, doing crazy stuff and looking way too beautiful doing it.

He follows her to the water's edge. "You're really going to swim? In the middle of winter?" He tries to sound disapproving, but it comes out more impressed than anything.

"No. _We're_ going swimming." She grins mischievously and he can totally guess what she's going to do. Her arm slides across the water, spraying him with icy drops.

He sighs, but pulls his shirt off. Of course he'd follow her. Was there any other option? "I thought you agreed to be _smarter_. Catching pneumonia isn't smart," he informs her dryly.

She just laughs. Everything's brighter now. The weight in her chest is gone and Carter is here. _Here to stay_. And he's here _for her_. She knows because she's Serena again—not the messy broken girl that left Manhattan—and boys can't hide that stuff from her.

And Carter doesn't even have to _try_.

She loves him anyway.

She jumps into his arms, using her feet to knock his legs out from under him. She's not quite certain whether she wants to drown him or kiss him. She decides kissing underwater is a good compromise.

They come up for air and he lets her drag him to the shore and collapse. Kissing on land is way better.

"I'll be smart tomorrow," she says easily, doubting it will happen.

_I can't really make you love me_

_I can't really make you love me_

_I can't really make you love me_

_I can't really make you love me_


End file.
